Student entrepreneur, James Lakin, launches Student Shop!

Today we are celebrating the launch of ‘Student Shop‘ a new business set up by Long Road student and entrepreneur, James Lakin!

James joined Long Road in 2019 after completing his GCSEs at the Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology. He is now studying Level 3  Computing, Level 3 Graphic Design and A Level Business; combining the skills learnt on each of these courses to create his new business venture – Student Shop!

James, what sparked your passion for building your business? 

In December 2019 I started a company. The biggest issue I encountered was that it was difficult for small businesses to get recognised and find a customer base. When thinking about how I could better sell to people at college I came up with Student Shop, just in a much more stripped-down version.

How did you take your first steps into setting up your own business?

The first thing I did was went to Steve Dann and Andy Goodwin to present my idea. From there we improved on the idea to get it to where it is.

So, what is Student Shop? Tell us all about the new business you are bringing to Long Road! How do we get involved? 

Student shop acts as a marketplace that gives students a platform to sell items to other members of the college.

As a customer I wanted it to be as easy as possible to find products and see what there is to offer. This means that everything is easy to use and all on one simple website.

As sellers all you have to do is apply online and send the completed form to student-shop@outlook.com and wait to be approved. Once it is approved by both Student Shop and the college it will be put straight on the Student Shop website.

We are really excited to be supporting your new business, where do you see it going next? 

Right now, we are just testing how Student Shop works right now to see if people are interested. But in the future, given that everything goes well I want to automate the lockers where Students purchase items so that there isn’t a burden on any college staff and makes the system feel fully integrated into college life. Looking even further into the future, I would want to take Student Shop nationwide and bring it to as many schools and colleges as I can.